Virginia’s governor’s race offers 2021’s biggest prize. Might the outcome of the contest between former Governor Terry McAuliffe, the old Clinton pal, and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin, portend partisan momentum going into 2022?
In just the last dozen years or so, my adopted commonwealth has mutated politically from “Deep Red to Solid Blue.” There is, the FiveThirtyEight polling website explains, “a 13-election winning streak for Democrats in Virginia statewide races since 2012.” Though the McAuliffe/Youngkin race is “somewhat likelier to result in a Democratic victory,” it “could go either way.”
The biggest flashpoint? McAuliffe’s statement at the final debate: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
I quoted that last week in “Burning Down the House.” But in a comment, a reader named Doug argued that I was “taking McAuliffe’s comment totally out of context.”
Now, McAuliffe’s words had been widely reported in precisely the fashion I had placed them, so I felt comfortable. But I had not listened to the entire exchange, specifically to what McAuliffe was responding. So I listened.
“What we have seen over the course of the last 20 months,” Youngkin told the debate audience, “is our school systems refusing to engage with parents.” Noting how he had spoken with parents upset about “sexually explicit material,” Youngkin charged that McAuliffe “vetoed the bill that would have informed parents” about those materials.
“I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education,” concluded Youngkin.
In response, McAuliffe called Youngkin “clueless” and then famously dissed parents.
“School boards are best positioned,” McAuliffe wrote in vetoing that 2016 legislation, “to ensure that our students are exposed to those appropriate literary and artistic works that will expand students’ horizons and enrich their learning experiences.”
Whether their parents like it or not.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “Virginia is for Parents?”
The home state of many of the Founding Fathers is now all about big government. Why do Virginians vote for big government which is less and less effective? If they wanted to ensure that students are “exposed to those appropriate literary and artistic works that will expand students’ horizons and enrich their learning experiences”, then how about making sure at the end of a school year that all students can read above grade level? If you are entering fourth grade, you should have finished the third year with at least a fourth grade reading level, so that you are able to comprehend the lessons for that year.
We had McCauliffe once already. (Or McAwful, as we called him then).
We don’t need more of the same left-wing garbage.
Many voters are champaign socialist, and have placed their children in private schools. Others are happy enough with the Democratic Party making the same choices as these voters would make for their children. A very sizable share of parents do not much love their children. And many voters do not have children and are willing to throw the children of others under the short bus. So expect McAuliffe to win, and the main-stream of the media to treat this victory as if it were an intellectual victory.
Instead of projecting an image of confidence and, McAuliffe has responded to criticism by becoming shrill, and by making claims about Youngkin that even the main-stream of the media have felt need to refute. To me it seems that McAuliffe may have pulled defeat from the jaws of victory, though the count of votes can still go his way.